Battle of Britain Day 2018 September 15, 1940 and how is it being remembered?

THE 78th commemoration of the Battle of Britain celebrates the defence of the United Kingdom by the RAF against the Nazi air force, known as the Lutftwaffe, in World War Two. But what exactly happened in 1940 and how is it being marked. Here's all you need to know.

The annual Battle of Britain Day is celebrated on September 15. The day is dedicated to the large-scale aerial battle that took place from July 10 until October 31, 1940.

The clash was said to be the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces. Britain's Royal Air Force defended the United Kingdom from attacks by Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe.

British allies from many nations including Canada, Australia, Poland and New Zealand also took part. In honour of the momentous event, September 15 has become an annual day to commemorate the Battle of Britain in the UK.

In Canada, the commemoration takes place on the third Sunday of September. In the past the day has been marked by many artists who often create artwork depicting the battle itself.

What happened on September 15, 1940? September 15, 1940, saw the largest military air strike against the UK by the German Air Force, known as the Luftwaffe.

Nazi Germany hoped that by unleashing the large-scale bombing on London they would be able to coerce the UK into negotiating a peace settlement.

The British RAF deployed their fleet to tackle the 176 enemy aircraft that were destroyed during the raid. British casualties were much fewer with only 13 pilots declared dead or missing and only 25 aircraft lost in the fight.

On the day itself, two major attacks were launched on London with smaller assaults on the southern coast in Portland and Southampton.

The German aircraft were met by a fleet of British RAF planes and many of the Germans reportedly turned straight around without deploying any bombs.

Buckingham Palace was hit by two bombs during the raid but neither exploded meaning the damage to the historic building was minimal.

Railway bridges between Victoria and Clapham Junction were hit, along with gas and water mains, causing great disruption to South London hospitals.

One day?

Well, Eagle Day was one day of some seven months of ever-changing air raids and air assaults towards England. Yes, it was an important day - perhaps easiest one to remember.

But the most important “day” in the Battle of Britain happened when Hitler-Goering got “mad” at Churchill’s RAF raid on Berlin (ordered only AFTER a German raid on military targets “missed” and bombed London itself). THAT decision stopped the very successful German raids on the RAF bases and radar sites!

And THAT decision (to stop hitting the very vulnerable RAF bases) saved England.

That and radar. Goerring didn’t have it, couldn’t believe it, and was dumbfounded that the RAF was always there, waiting for them.

The RAF shot down 1600 of Hitler’s 2000 planes.

If it hadn’t been for English radar the Battle of Britain would have been lost and followed up with a Wehrmacht ground invasion rather than Hitler having Rommel dig in and defend the coast of France.

RAF shot the daylights out of the Luftwaffe, sorely depleted them. Germans turned it into a bitter joke, since the Brits were doing night bombing and the US was doing daylight raids.

German joke ran:

“How can you tell whose planes those are in the air over us?”

“If they show up by night they’re the English. If they show up during the day they’re Americans.

If they don’t show up at all they’re the Luftwaffe.”

“...radar. Goering didn’t have it, couldn’t believe it, and was dumbfounded that the RAF was always there, waiting for them.
...If it hadn’t been for English radar the Battle of Britain would have been lost...” [To-Whose-Benefit?, post 10]

Barely begins to describe the situation.

The most significant British accomplishment of World War 2 was the invention and implementation of the Integrated Air Defense System (IADS), of which radar was just one part.

IADS takes information from sensors, feeds it to filter centers which pass it up to command centers (and sideways to other nodes); command centers direct defense forces to intercept and destroy attacking forces. Each element reports what it is doing, also up the chain and sideways (and down the chain as needed).

Radar was only one of the sensors, in 1940 the longest in range and the most revolutionary (hence best remembered today). There were also listening posts using giant arrays of horns resembling banks of old-style Victrola record players, and individual observers using their eyeballs.

At the opposite end of the system were the defense forces: fighter aircraft like the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane got most of the glory, but there were a great many anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) emplaced in batteries near cities and other potential Luftwaffe targets. Fighter forces were guided to intercept incoming attackers and AAA batteries were alerted when attackers were nearing their location. They fired on attackers on command and reported results (success or failure) up the chain and sideways to the rest of the system.

The command centers took in the data and formed a picture of the battle situation: as seen in many films, the big room with the huge map, with RAF auxiliaries (many of whom were women) listening & talking on telephones and moving the little models around the map as directed, commanders gazing down from a balcony and making overall decisions.

Thus the effectiveness of fighters and AAA were amplified, their reaction times were reduced, and British defense succeeded in fending off the Luftwaffe with numbers of forces that would have been inadequate under any previous form of organization.

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